Summary And Review Of “Philosophy For As And A2” By Stephen Law
In the reading “Philosophy for AS and A2” by Stephen Law, the author discusses what it means to be a person and asks what are “necessary and sufficient conditions” to be the same person over time. First gives a synonymous definition for “person”, which is a human being. According to the author human beings are “species of animal” and, then with an example he explains that those two expressions (human beings and persons) have the same citation, but have different impression. By author, persons also have personalities, but this is arguable, because many non-human animals have personalities, have capability to feel pain and have mental sophistication too. Furthermore, he doubts what it actually means to be a person, comparing them with attributes of other things. By giving the example of “triangle”, author describes person as an intelligent creature.
On the other hand, several attitudes and abilities that a person can have is mentioned in the article` being emotional and having feelings, ability to remember past and distinguishing it from present, capacity to make decisions, ability to use language, being subjective, and ability to make relationships with another, which author also underlines. The author adds on that if a person is born without a hand or disabled that is not a person, this is where problem occurs with figuring out what it means to be person.
Two kinds of identity are discussed in article - numerically identical and qualitatively identical. Strict or numerically is the one that is found only in itself. If things share many properties, so they are qualitatively identified. Philosophers discussing criteria of personal identity, state that maintaining a specific property that makes he or she the same person as the time changes. These two leads to Bodily continuity and physiological continuity. Firstly, bodily continuity maintains the idea staying in the same physical body over time. The problem is that change in things brings them to go out of existence. Some go out of existence by dying after a long lifetime change, but some go only when slightly changes occur. Whatever changes occur in person’s living body, however they will serve the person, then that person will still be the same. For example, if person has amnesia or has lost their leg or arm, in this case person physical and mental changes, but he/she never stops being the same person he/she was before the changes. Furthermore, the author states, that theory is sufficient for identity, but not necessary, because something else can do the identical job to keep person the same.
Secondly, “The memory criterion” in another way is called “physcological continuity”. This is important part of personal identity and has a diverse theory of bodily continuity. Theory points out that keeping the same living body is neither necessary nor sufficient for personal identity, but the main thing that is necessary and sufficient for being a person is self-consciousness and awareness. In this case memories, past events and being active and involved in those occurrences are included too. Theory states that if bodily continuity is neither necessary nor sufficient, so that means that it becomes irrelevant to personal identity, because living body can host different and consecutive persons in it. Theory insists that mental illnesses bring out a different type of a person or somehow they break them, because the person forgets who he/she really is and becomes a new one.
